Sevo Tarifa COMRADE ENVER HOXHA S SPEECH AT THE MOSCOW MEETING A WORK OF HISTORIC IMPORTANCE THE 8 NENTORI PUBLISHING HOUSE TIRANA 1981 The Moscow Meeting of November 1960 was a stem ideological battle. Its proceedings can be divided into two separate phases: The first phase is that of the beginning of the meeting, which was characterized by unreal calm. Khrushchev tried to create the impression that the meeting would proceed quietly, peacefully, without open attacks, but it was he who began the attack, of course, without mentioning anyone by name. With this tactic, writes Comrade Enver Hoxha in his book The Khrushchevites. Khrushchev wanted to warn us: Take your pick, either general attacks without any names, but with everybody understanding for whom they are intended, or if you don t like it that way, we shall attack you openly. *(1) Meanwhile, outside the conference hall, in the corridors, intrigues and backstage deals were hatched up, pressures, threats, blackmail and working on delegates in the Khrushchevite style
continued. The second phase is that of the open discussion and the exposure of Khrushchev and his group. The aim and tactics of our Party were: We do not accept peace for the sake of peace in the communist movement; we do not permit errors to be covered up. We cannot allow the Moscow Meeting be a meeting of revisionists and rightwing pacifists: we shall fight to make it a militant, constructive, Marxist meeting. There is no other way. *(2) And the turning point in the Moscow Meeting was reached when Comrade Enver Hoxha made his historic speech. This speech was a sharp sword aimed against the distortions of Marxism-Leninism by Khrushchev and his group. Defence of Marxism-Leninism, profoundly in the party spirit and with adherence to lofty proletarian class principles, was its essence. Our Party had pledged: We shall go to Moscow not with ten flags, but with only one, with the banner of Marxism-Leninism. Therefore, the central idea of the speech at the Moscow Meeting was: We must make no concessions over principles : He who puts his trust in the enemy will sooner or later be the loser. Proceeding from these positions, this speech deals
scientifically with problems of the revolutionary theory and practice, of the strategy and tactics in the international communist movement. Hitting right on the mark. Comrade Enver Hoxha showed that the origin of the evil in the ranks of international communism lay in the anti-marxist theses of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. And he fearlessly declared to the Moscow Meeting: If anyone considers our struggle against revisionism, dogmatism or sectarianism, we say to him: take off your revisionist spectacles and you will see more clearly. *(3) In his speech at the Moscow Meeting, Comrade Enver Hoxha consistently defended proletarian internationalism. To the revisionist pressure that by fighting against Khrushchev we were allegedly against the Soviet Union, he replied: Our Party nuts the problem in this way: shall we pat the back of Khrushchev, this arch enemy of the Soviet Union, or should we say to the Soviet people: there is your enemy! We are sure that it is better to tell the Soviet people the reality, because in this way we carry out our internationalist duty. *(4) The time was past when the stand towards the Soviet Union, as the centre of the world revolution, was the criterion of the proletarian internationalism. With the advent to power of the Khrushchev group this
criterion had to be applied in the opposite way: he who fought the Soviet revisionists and exposed their betrayal was an internationalist and a revolutionary. That is precisely what our Party did at the Moscow Meeting. In this speech, the struggle for the defence of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism and the struggle for the defence of the lofty interests of our people and Homeland are combined in a single whole. At those critical moments of great importance for the fate of socialism and the international communist movement, our Party had to choose between two roads: first, the road of refusal to submit to the revisionist Soviet leadership, which was a rough road but the only one leading to victory; or second, the road of submission to the Khrushchevite traitors, a road strewn with flowers and laurels, but which led to disaster. Our Party chose wisely and resolutely followed the former road. The latter road meant we would lose the independence of the Homeland. Therefore, at the Moscow Meeting Comrade Enver Hoxha said: May we be cursed by our mother s milk, may we be cursed by the bread with which the Party and the people nurture us if we fail to defend the interests of our people. *(5) Under the motto, by defending Marxism- Leninism and proletarian internationalism we
defend the interests of our people and Homelands he courageously and consistently unmasked the hostile intentions of the Khrushchevites towards the Party of Labour of Albania and its leadership which were: to convince the leadership of our Party of the correctness of the line which the Soviet Union followed in all directions; to discredit our Party, to present it as if it had left the rails of Marxism- Leninism and was not a socialist country; to force the Party of Labour of Albania to change the correct stand it maintained at Bucharest, to undermine its unity, to split and overthrow its leadership. The exposure of these anti-albanian aims and methods by our Party was not done with kid gloves, but with open criticism and ideological courage. The time had come to put the finger on the sore spot. We could not call ourselves communists, Comrade Enver Hoxha declared, if we were to close our mouth in the face of distortions of Marxism-Leninism..., regardless of the fact that the violators and the deviators, in the concrete case, are the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. *(6) And with his characteristic great courage he told
Khrushchev at the Moscow Meeting: It is not we who are acting like the Yugoslavs, but you who are using methods alien to Marxism-Leninism against our Party. **(7) While Comrade Enver Hoxha, with great courage and iron logic waged a principled struggle and fearlessly unmasked the opportunist views and actions of the modem revisionists, Mao Zedong had long been currying favour with Khrushchev, while allegedly criticizing him in a figurative way: You, Comrade Khrushchev, are like a beautiful lotus, nevertheless, you need the support of green leaves... (From the speech to the Moscow Meeting, November 18, 1957, p. 11, CPA.) The principled stand of our Party at the Moscow Meeting speaks of its great strength. It found this strength in Marxism-Leninism, in the steel unity of its ranks about which Comrade Enver Hoxha says: We must safeguard our Party, safeguard it with love, tenderness, vigilance, because the arrows of the enemy are aimed against it. *(8) Comrade Enver Hoxha s speech at the Moscow Meeting was a stem Indictment against modem revisionism, in general, and against Khrushchevite revisionism, in particular. The revisionists were wrong in their calculations. The
stone they picked up to throw at our Party fell on their own heads. In his letter to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of our Party, Comrade Hysni Kapo wrote:...when Comrade Enver Hoxha began to mention the facts, especially about what Khrushchev had done, all of them (Khrushchev and the other members of the Presidium of the CPSU S.T.) turned red with anger, seemed revolted and bursting with indignation... The members of the other delegations listened with such fixed attention that there was not the slightest movement of their heads or hands. * (9) These were long-range ideological bombs. The speech which Comrade Enver Hoxha delivered in Moscow became the talk of the day everywhere. When it was published it had great international repercussions. Many well-wishers expressed themselves in terms such as: The temperament of the Albanian leadership in Moscow was necessary and indispensable ; Your line is correct and we have great respect for your leadership, Stand firm, because if any danger threatens you, everyone will rise on his feet to defend Albania. Articles in the world press had such titles: Indictment by Mr. Enver Hoxha ; An important document in the international communist movement ; Invaluable aid from the Party of Labour of Albania ; A document of great
ideological, political and historical value ; Every phrase of this speech carries the Marxist-Leninist truth, testifies to the indomitable courage of the Party and of the small Albanian people, who are so great in the history of the international communist and workers movement and before the entire world ; We thank the glorious Albanian people, their heroic Party of Labour and the outstanding leader Enver Hoxha. Our Party s speech in Moscow was called a bomb and a banner : a bomb for the imperialists and the revisionists and a banner for the peoples and the proletariat. Its content remains so to this day. Following this speech, the Khrushchevites hoped that the Albanian communists and the Albanian people would rise against their leadership. But the opposite occurred. The unity of the ranks of the Party and the Party-people unity were steeled as never before. A new revolutionary impetus to carry out the tasks burst out everywhere in our country. The historic speech delivered at the Moscow Meeting raised the reputation of our Party even higher. Time has proved the correctness of this speech and the far-sightedness of Comrade Enver Hoxha. Khrushchev degenerated and was pushed
off the political stage. His successors, Brezhnev and company, have suffered continual defeats. This is the fate of all revisionists of every hue. Their end is inglorious. Glory belongs only to Marxism-Leninism. Notes: 1- * Enver Hoxha, The Khrushchevites, p. 438, Alb. ed. 2- * Enver Hoxha, Works, vol. 19, p. 290, Alb. ed. 3- * Ibidem, p. 463. 4- * Enver Hoxha, Works, vol. 27, p. 197, Alb. ed. 5- * Enver Hoxha, Works, vol. 19, p. 54, Alb. ed. 6- * Enver Hoxha. Works, vol. 19, p. 516, Alb. e 7- * * Ibidem, p. 424. 8- * Enver Hoxha, Works, vol. 22, p. 19, Alb. ed. 9- * Hysni Kapo, Selected Works, vol. 2, p. 632, Alb. ed.